PREP SOCCER: Lake Shore earns trip to regional championship

By
John K. Schroder, The Macomb Daily

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

BLOOMFIELD HILLS—For the second year in a row Lake Shore has punched its ticket to the regional soccer championship round.

The Shorians dispatched Dearborn Divine Child, 2-1, on an unseasonal warm evening at Lahser High School to earn a berth in a Division 2 regional championship. Lake Shore will meet the survivor of the Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook-Riverview winner here on Saturday at 4 p.m.

Following a 0-0 draw at halftime, Lake Shore netted the two goals it needed to eliminate the Falcons. Divine Child, who finished third in the Catholic league AA Division behind front-runner Cranbrook, closed its season with a 14-8-4 mark.

Lake Shore which hasn’t lost in a month, improved its record to 17-1-4 while dragging a MAC Blue co-championship (loss to Dakota) and a district championship for a ride that needs one more victory to claim a regional title and a berth in the Division 2 state semifinals.

Divine Child played one man short after a defender was red carded and ejected midway through the first half. The Shorians up-tempo attack finally wore down Divine Child’s defense and produced two goals in a span of 4:36 minutes.

After peppering the Falcons cage, the Shorians were rewarded when junior Mike Swarthout unleashed a wicked 25-yard blast following a skirmish in the box. Joey Podsiadly had a crack at a loose ball, but it was blocked and bounded right to Swarthout who shot Lake Shore into a 1-0 lead 61:17 into the game, much to the delight of the Shorians vociferous fans.

“We said at halftime, if you got a shot, take it, and that’s what we did. It went in. That’s what you have to do is take lots of shots,” said Lake Shore Coach Dave Lount as he watched his team outshoot the Falcons, 13-7, in the second half. “Down a man, they are still a good defensive team. We knew if we played the ball wide that we would have lots of opportunities. We did it, but not as much as I would’ve liked us to do. But, we got it out wide and it was most dangerous for us.”

You couldn’t get more wide than the Shorians were on the second goal. The play started with a throw-in from 35 yards out by Marcus Barnett on the right side. His bullet toss was headed on by Jeff Sawka and landed in the box where the streaking Cody Lowry redirected the ball past Divine Child keeper Mick Higgins with 14:07 to play in regulation time for a 2-0 edge.

“We finally got lucky on the throw-in. It was flicked and I saw an opportunity and ran to it and did what I could do with it,” said Lowry of his eventual game winner. “This really means a lot to us. We have a good team and we’ve been playing well all year.”

Just prior to Lowry’s tally, teammate Sean VanWambeke nearly increased the lead when he uncorked a left-footed floater from 18-yards out but near the sideline and the ball carried past the keeper and just missed sneaking inside the far post.

As the clock winded down in the final 10 minutes, Divine Child pressed to get that one goal that would put the Falcons back in the game. The Falcons were awarded a penalty kick and Evan Heiss ruined the clean sheet for Lake Shore’s stellar keeper Luke Warrick with a twine-singeing blast with 8:12 to play.

“Losing a player was critical. That was a senior defender who had a tough assignment in marking one of their good forwards. It drained us,” Divine Child assistant coach Dean Kowalski said of the earlier player ejection. “But, the PK gave us life. We felt that we should have had another one earlier when it was 0-0. That would have changed everything. Unfortunately it didn’t go our way. We got back in it, but their keeper made some great saves.”

Four minutes later, Sam Ambe had a glorious opportunity to seal the win when he intercepted a bad kick from Higgins. Ambe dribbled in but Higgins robbed the sophomore forward to keep the Falcons hopes alive.

Warrick saved the day with several key saves in the opening half and then featured two leaping saves off Falcons headers that were initiated by long throw-ins from Justice Wong in the second half. The first denial came with 27:09 left in the second half and then the primo knockout came with just 59 seconds left to preserve the win.